Extinction Rebellion

Not to start a fight here, but the video @Drano posted is a good example. It's criticism of XR on the basis that they are operating within a capitalist system rather than trying to overthrow it. Clearly to the person who made that video, abolition of capitalism is more important than climate change[...]

The point is that any movement like XR that focuses on green reform of capitalism is ultimately doomed to fail (or a dead end, as the video puts it) because a system based on endless growth is inherently at odds with environmentalist goals. Don't get me wrong, it's great that people are starting to take direct action, but if we're unable to pivot this anger into demands for more radical change then we are all very much doomed.

Don't get me wrong, it's great that people are starting to take direct action, but if we're unable to pivot this anger into demands for more radical change then we are all very much doomed.

But if XR expands to have a much wider remit than reforms that are directed at safeguarding the environment, then it is also doomed.

Yes, I can understand that concern, and we must address those issues if we want a long-term sustainable civilisation. But we have to be careful to keep our priorities in mind and always consider the opportunity cost of each action we take. What we need to do at this moment is significantly reduce emissions as quickly as possible and that should be the underlying aim of everything we do.

Death is irreversible, other problems are not. You can always eventually overthrow a hyper-capitalist dictatorship, even if it takes 200 years. You cannot overthrow extinction.

XR are constantly belittled for wanting to mess with capitalism or dismissed as anarcho-communist or eco-fascists. It depends on who’s doing the trashing.

I think hope for ones own personal politics 100% aligning with a fast-changing lose global affiliation of somewhat likeminded eco activists is miss-placed. It’s also probably a distraction.

Dubai is quite nice apparently.

Yeah, the fact that some people think that XR is anticapitalist just shows how far we are from making any real progress.

any movement like XR that focuses on green reform of capitalism is ultimately doomed to fail (or a dead end, as the video puts it) because a system based on endless growth is inherently at odds with environmentalist goals.

The point is that any movement like XR that focuses on green reform of capitalism is ultimately doomed to fail (or a dead end, as the video puts it) because a system based on endless growth is inherently at odds with environmentalist goals.

I know very little about XR, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but my guess is that most people involved with XR (especially in senior positions) fully agree that "an economic system based on endless growth is inherently at odds with environmentalist goals".

Surely the decision to focus on driving green reform in the existing capitalist system is a strategic decision made on the grounds of expediency rather than an implicit acceptance of neoliberal economics? If we are to avoid catastrophic environmental impacts we need to see action now. Action now needs public support and engagement and I just don't think that people in countries like the UK are ready to accept or embrace radical economic reform yet.

Secondarily, it might not be a foolish thing to disassociate economic reform from an environmental agenda. Living on a healthy planet is something that I think is more widely palatable across a diverse political spectrum than a revolution to the economic system. Focussing on the environmental side of the debate may well be a deliberate strategy to avoid it becoming highly politicised (the environment is always political but I mean politicised in terms of becoming an issue of bipolar partisanship in government).

A socially just and healthy planet absolutely require economic reform, the two issues go hand in hand, but my suspicion it's better to campaign for them separately?

is it though?

Plenty of inmates worked in death camps. Why?

Our faith and human desire to survive is unbelievably strong.

Few large societies have had anything like the level of political agency we all have. We're really not that special or unique.

is it though?

Plenty of happy people in Singapore

capitalism is ultimately doomed to fail because a system based on endless growth is inherently at odds with environmentalist goals.

Not necessarily.

The UK replaced it's declining industry with services. Services can provide economic growth without ever producing anything. Look at a derivatives trader - what is their actual environmental impact (ignore the underlying commodities)? Likely far less than a Chris King employee.

You're looking at it from the bias of someone who has issues with our current system and sees an increase in material goods as an inevitably of economic growth.
At the moment they go hand-in-hand, but they don't have to.

This post x 8

Services can provide economic growth without ever producing anything. ... derivatives trader ...

Immediately reminds me of this wonderful piece of Radio. (transcript, long read)

https://thefinanser.com/2009/05/the-great-hargeisa-goat-bubble.html/

👍

Using the Bhutan happiness index?

posing for the press looking like pirates of the Caribbean doesn't do themselves any favours on that front

I feel like having 12 locations this time might have stretched them too thin, seems not enough people to hold sites this time, though the dose of british rain may have helped with that. Hearing reports police are moving to clear one of the bridges already.

That was wonderful, thanks

Goat audio here for anyone interested... really very good!

https://soundcloud.com/richge/the-great-hargeisa-goat-bubble

The narrator on that youtube video has the most soul-crushing voice. It's a combination of hectoring and deathly boring. Gah. It's like being stuck in an elevator with a student who has just discovered the SWP.

Nice one!

Anyone else seen this knocking about?

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• Extremism-Rebellion

I am shocked - shocked - that a centre right think tank would be wetting its pants over the prospect of a mass environmental / civil disobedience movement.

i'm working in a business park in southampton for my sins.

the office gammons have just had an all to predictable blokeversation about how ER are all massive hypocrites who should all be ignored because the last time they saw them on the news, they left some plastic behind on a street corner.